Christmas 2011

For family and friends far away, thanks for all the ways you shared the holidays with us. 

Advent 2011

I wonder how we'll prepare ourselves for a winter advent celebration this year?

How will we prepare our hearts?

How will our table be welcoming to others? 

Can we offer warmth within our bows?

We strive to shine light in darkness.


We want to deepen our understanding of the gift being given.

How will we get there?

And above all, where will we be when we arrive?

A Year

Family, friends, and strangers who enjoy(ed) reading our blog, I am sorry.

The summer passed has been filled with sunshine, warm air, little girls, and household tasks, so much so that I've neglected this sharing place. 

But I'm here to share with you now. 

Our dear newborn baby Annika is now ONE! 

Here's some highlights from our celebrations for Annika, otherwise known as Banannika!

Now that Annika has been introduced to refined sugar, opening presents, and dressing like a fairy life will be grand!


Thanks everyone who blessed little Annika with your love over the course of the year.  She's a curious, active, cheeky little gal!

Spoiled!

This is when I SHOULD be washing up my dishes: while baby has morning nap and before Corrina returns home from school. 
But.... I have just been dying to put of some pretty pictures.

I was spoiled on Mother's day (and so was Dave on father's day!):

Dave and Corrina made beautiful Origami flowers to fill and outside flower pot for me!

We are having a wonderful summer.  It's raining alot, so our grass is perpetually long and going to seed, but that's not stopping us from having a blast!

We've planted a "fairy" garden for Corrina to play in.  It's really growing in beautifully!

Sometimes she's happy to sit and watch us play around the yard!

I made this hat!

Most of their interactions look like this!

Look what we MADE!

A long long long time ago, Spring 2010, I decided that I wanted a better Kitchen Island.  

So I "instructed" Dave to make sense of all my ideas of what this Island should encompass, and he set to work with some design ideas (this is pretty much how my amazing engagement ring cam eot be as well!)

In mid summer 2010 Dave drove around to 4 different Canadian Tire stores finding stools I liked that were on sale.  We were going to build the Island around the stools, ya know to get the right leg room and stuff!

In late summer 2010 Dave bought a lot of really beautiful HARD Maple wood!  It sat in the basement for along time.  We wanted it to really feel at home here before we made something of it.  

I found this website and "instructed" Dave to consult some ideas for actually building this table.  The website made building look so easy and quick!  I liked that!!!

In fall of 2010, while awaiting Annika, Dave and his Dad passed the time constructing the table top of the Island. 

This construction process was Ginormously difficult.  I don't think Dave would have ever agreed to my "instructions" to build our our Island had we any clue how time consuming and challenging the process would be.  Chris lead the team though, and made our ideas come to life!  He's amazing that guy, Chris that is!  He just took off with the task, created detailed construction plans, whipped out to the store 100+ times to gather more supplies, and worked tirelessly on the project! I helped too, by finishing growing Annika!

 So, with all this wonderful prep work in place, the table top prepped and ready to go, Dave set to work RIGHT AWAY, to put the rest of the table together. 
Yeah, RIGHT!  8 months later, Dave had finished sanding the crazy HARD Maple top (DO you know how HARD Maple is, MY GOSH, that's Hardwood.  I understand why it's for floors and not tables.  IT DOESN"T SAND! But Dave found a way to make it get smooth!).

 8 Months later, Dave and I finally dragged the pieces upstairs and began construction!  Corrina happily watched a movie, Annika slept, and we built.  Clearly Duffy helped.

 Nice legs! 

 And, WAH-LA!  We have a beautiful island that seats four, has drawers (facing away on the dresser base), is ridiculously sturdy, and is STILL NOT FINISHED! 

 
We are keeping it under a table cloth until we can find more time to finishing sanding and smoothing, and than apply 100 or so top coats of varnish.  This thing will NEVER get a scratch!

So, in one sense or another, this Island is about the same age as Annika.  Well, even she took less time to make, all things considered!

Isn't she sweet? 

A New Hope:

It is a time of great celebration in the Galaxy...